Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes — September 27, 2016

We just released a new patch for Heroes of the Storm, which brings a new Battleground and Hero to the Nexus, as well as balance changes, bug fixes, and more! Check out today’s patch notes below.

NOTE: Orange text indicates an addition that was made between the Public Test Realm and final versions of the patch notes.

General

New Map Rotation

Starting September 27, the pool of Battlegrounds available in all modes, except Custom Games, will be temporarily limited to the following:

Warhead Junction

Braxis Holdout

Towers of Doom

Dragon Shire

Battlefield of Eternity

Cursed Hollow

During this time, players can still select and play on any Battleground they wish using Custom Games.

The reduced Battleground pool will remain in effect until the Machines of War event concludes during the week of October 17.

Tutorial Improvements

The second tutorial mission has received significant changes to gameplay, user interface, and instruction flow. This mission should now better serve to introduce players to some of Heroes of the Storm’s unique mechanics.

New Hero: Zarya

Aleksandra Zaryanova is one of the world’s strongest women and was a promising athlete, but all that changed when the Siberian omnium reawakened. As a soldier in the Russian Defense Force, she now proudly uses her strength to protect the ones she loves.

Trait

Energy

Each time Zarya’s Personal Barrier or Shield Ally absorbs 10 damage, her Energy is increased by 1. Each point of Energy increases Zarya’s damage by 2%. After 0.5 seconds, Energy decays by 3 per second.

Basic Abilities

Particle Grenade (Q)

Launch a Particle Grenade that deals damage to enemies within a small area. Deals 50% damage to Structures.

Personal Barrier (W)

Gain a Shield that absorbs damage for 3 seconds.

Shield Ally (E)

Grants an allied Hero a Shield that absorbs damage for 3 seconds.

Heroic Abilities

Graviton Surge (R)

Launch a gravity bomb that detonates after 1 second and draws enemy Heroes toward the center for 2.5 seconds.

Expulsion Zone (R)

Launch a gravity bomb that deals light damage and creates an expulsion zone for 3.5 seconds. Enemies who enter the affected area are knocked back and have their Movement Speed reduced by 50% for 1 second.

New Battleground: Warhead Junction

Once a testing facility for nuclear weapons, Warhead Junction has since fallen into ruin. However, the site’s abandonment hasn’t stopped its glitchy adjutant from continuing to produce and hand out nuclear weapons. Join the arms race of Warhead Junction, build up your stockpile, and rain hell on your enemies!

Warhead Deployment

Multiple Warheads will spawn periodically across the battleground.

Collect Warheads

Pick up a Warhead to activate your Nuke. Use it or you will drop it when you die!

Call Down the Thunder

Launch Nukes to devastate the enemy team’s fortifications.

Art

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Chen and Nazeebo have received updated visual effects to coincide with their Talent reworks.

Performance

General

Additional improvements have been made to Heroes of the Storm’s overall framerate, affecting all game modes and Battlegrounds.

Shop

Bundles

New Bundles

Thunder Guard Zarya Bundle – Available until October 11, 2016.

Raider Rexxar Bundle – Available until October 11, 2016.

Undying Legends Bundle – Available until October 18, 2016.

Ultimate Undying Legends Bundle – Available until October 18, 2016.

New Hero

Zarya has been added to the in-game Shop.

Mounts

Returning Mounts

Judgement Charger

Removed Mounts

Lunar Dragon

Spectre Phantom

Dire Wolf

Skins

Raider Rexxar

Thunder Guard Zarya

Master Zarya

Price Changes

Diablo’s prices have been reduced to $3.49 USD and 2,000 Gold.

Muradin’s prices have been increased to $6.49 USD and 4,000 Gold.

Sound

General

The second Tutorial mission has received updated sound effects to coincide with its overhaul.

The Seasoned Marksman Talent has received a new sound effect heard when the active ability awarded by the quest is used.

User Interface

Voiceover will now play on the MVP and Commendation screen when a player receives enough votes to reach Epic or Legendary status.

Battlegrounds

Braxis Holdout

All Zerg Units have received the following changes:

Early-game damage scaling significantly reduced

Mid-game damage scaling slightly reduced

Late-game damage scaling moderately increased

Banelings

Base damage increased by 20%

Hydralisks

Base damage increased by 25%

Guardians

Base damage increased by roughly 17%

Ultralisks

Base damage increased by 20%

Developer Comments: We’ve noticed a few more one-sided games than we’d like on Braxis Holdout. The battleground plays faster by design, but we think that a few changes to reduce the early game effectiveness of the zerg will put the balance closer to what we’d like after the battleground goes live.

Assassin

Alarak

Abilities

Discord Strike (Q)

Mana cost reduced from 60 to 55

Lightning Surge (E)

Mana cost reduced from 40 to 30

Damage increased from 90 to 100

Width increased by 50%

Counter-Strike (R)

Damage increased from 250 to 275

Added Functionality:

Now grants Alarak Unstoppable for its duration

Talents

Level 1

Power Conduit (E)

Mana cost reduction decreased from 15 to 10

Wide Lightning (E)

Removed

Level 7

Thunderstruck (E)

Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds

Level 13

Hindered Motion (W)

Slow duration increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds

Developer Comments: While we expected Alarak’s win rate to be a bit on the lower side due to how difficult his kit can be to fully execute, we felt that he could use some buffs to make him feel better to play. Across the board Lightning Surge is slightly under-performing, so we’re upping the power of the base ability and its related talents. We hope that this will properly reward Alarak players who take Lightning Surge related talents, particularly those who master the gameplay of clotheslining enemies with the Lightning. When we first designed Counter-Strike, we felt that crowd control was an appropriate counter to the ability since it was so powerful on paper and on a reasonably low cooldown. Since his release, we have seen that Counter-Strike is simply not as reliable as we had predicted since Alarak has 3 potential ways to fail to get value (enemies can fail to damage him, they can dodge the returning skill shot, or they can crowd control him out of his channel). We’ve decided to grant him Unstoppable for its duration to make it more reliable, and we are increasing its damage to further separate it from Deadly Charge.

Chromie

Stats

Base maximum Health increased from 1260 to 1323

Health regen increased from 2.63 to 2.76

Abilities

Sand Blast (Q)

Range increased by 6%

Dragon’s Breath (W)

Range increased by 6%

Temporal Loop (R)

Range decreased by 8%

Talents

Level 13

Reaching Through Time (Passive)

Range bonus decreased from 25 to 15%

Developer Comments: Reaching Through Time had a dominating pick rate, for good reason. We’re taking a little bit of that range from the Talent and adding it baseline. While we’re at it, we’re reducing the range on Temporal Loop slightly to require Chromie to put herself more at risk. Temporal Loop isn’t overpowered per se, but the majority of the counterplay required specific Heroes (Medivh, Auriel, Uther) or Cleanse. We’re also buffing her Health so that the sum total of all these changes will result in an improvement to her winrate, since she is slightly less powerful than what we’d like to see.

Cooldown reduction gained when an enemy dies under the effects of Drain Life changed from 7 seconds to a full cooldown reset

Developer Comments: Gul’dan’s slightly underperforming compared to other assassins, so we’re giving him some throughput buffs as well as buffing his Fel Flame ability. We know that the Echoed Corruption change may not be positively received as it is a slight nerf, but we believe it is better for the health of his talent tier and for him overall. The intent of this talent was for it to be a relatively large power spike but for it to come very late into the game. Currently it’s still being unlocked earlier than we would like, and it has a slightly higher win rate compared to other talents on the tier. We wanted to buff Corruption by lowering its cooldown, so we felt that it was appropriate to slightly increase its quest completion time to help balance it out.

Li-Ming

Abilities

Arcane Orb (W)

Beginning size reduced by roughly 33%

Maximum size reduced by roughly 33%

Explosion radius reduced by roughly 15%

Talents

Level 4

Triumvirate (W)

Now reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 50%, instead of 5 seconds

Travel distance required reduced from 65 to 50%

Level 7

Zei’s Vengeance (W)

Added functionality:

Now also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Orb by 25%

Developer Comments: Arcane Orb and the Talents affecting it have been slightly underperforming over the past couple months. We are also unhappy with the unpredictably large explosion radius that occurs at close range detonations. To address these concerns, we have made some base size adjustments to the Orb missile while also buffing Zei’s Vengeance to help round out the full build. While the size changes definitely look like a nerf on paper, in actual testing we felt like they gave players tighter control with a lot less early-detonations on unintended targets.

The Butcher

Abilities

Furnace Blast (R)

Cooldown reduced from 80 to 60 seconds

Tychus

Stats

Base Maximum Health increased from 1836 to 1925

Base Health Regeneration increased from 3.8 to 4

Abilities

Commandeer Odin (R)

Added Functionality:

Now grants Tychus Resistant for the duration of Commandeer Odin, reducing damage taken by 25%

Talents

Level 1

Press the Advantage (E)

Basic Attack Range bonus increased from 25 to 35%

Combat Tactician (E)

Cooldown reduction increased from .75 to .8 seconds per Basic Attack.

Shrug It Off (E)

Removed

Developer Comments: After the change to Relentless Soldier in a previous patch, Tychus had 2 different ways to gain Resistant before level 10. While we like that Tychus is a “tanky Assassin”, we felt that him having more ways to mitigate damage than some melee Assassins to be too much. We decided to remove Shrug It Off because it felt misplaced on a tier that was primarily about Utility and Mobility. To compensate for the loss of Shrug It Off, we’ve decided to buff his baseline Health and Regeneration and the other Talent options at level 1. For players that really want to embrace the “tanky Assassin” role of Tychus, we’ve added Resistant to Odin so that you can truly feel like a scary mech of destruction while it is up.

Valla

Abilities

Vault (E)

Damage bonus per stack of Hatred increased from 5 to 6%

Hungering Arrow (Q)

Increased base damage from 140 to 151

Bounce damage increased from 80 to 86

Rain of Vengeance (R)

Cooldown decreased from 60 to 50 seconds per charge

Talents

Level 1

Monster Hunter (Q)

Mana refund amount increased from 30 to 40

Minion and Mercenary bonus damage increased from 100 to 150%

Level 4

Puncturing Arrow (Q)

Quest reward bonus damage increased from 50 to 75

Level 7

Death Dealer (E)

Bonus damage per Hatred stack increased from 10 to 12%

Developer Comments: We’re seeing a lot of success with Multi-Shot Valla’s builds, but the Basic Attack and Hungering Arrow focused Valla’s aren’t keeping pace. We really want to reward players for keeping their Hatred at high stacks and landing those Puncturing Arrows on their intended targets.

Specialist

Nazeebo

Abilities

Corpse Spiders (Q)

Spiders will now fixate on whatever enemies are hit with the jar, dividing their focus among all available targets. Prefers Heroic targets.

Spiders will now only spawn if you hit an enemy with the jar

Reduced the travel speed of the jar, mostly at close range

Increased the impact radius by 50%

Spiders now move significantly faster toward their target

Impact damage reduced from 91 to 50

Spider Attack’s damage increased from 13 to 35 per attack

Mana cost reduced from 60 to 50

Zombie Wall (W)

Zombie Health increased from 183 to 225

Plague of Toads (E)

Number of Toads spawned reduced from 5 to 3

Now has 2 charges

Damage changed from 87 damage on impact to 126 over 6 seconds

Multiple instances of this damage effect can affect the same enemy

Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds

Mana cost reduced from 55 to 30

Voodoo Ritual (Trait)

Damage over time effect is now only applied to non-Heroes

Duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds

Killing an enemy affected by Voodoo Ritual no longer restores Health and Mana

New Functionality:

You now permanently gain 4 Maximum Health and 1 Maximum Mana if an enemy Minion dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual

Gargantuan (R)

Gargantuan now stays near the area where cast and attempts to attack any enemies that come nearby. Prefers Heroic targets.

Initial impact damage reduced from 151 to 100

Stomp damage increased from 219 to 240

Attack range increased by 50%

Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds

Talents

Level 1

Demolitionist (Passive)

Removed

Death Ritual (Trait)

Removed

Bribe (Active)

Removed

Blood Ritual (Trait)

Moved to level 4

New Functionality:

If an enemy dies while affected by Voodoo Ritual, heal for 2% of your Maximum Health and Mana.

New Talent: Widowmakers (Q)

Quest: After hitting Heroes 100 times with Corpse Spider attacks, their damage is increased by 30%.

If your Plague of Toads explodes on an enemy Hero gain Resistant for 2 seconds, reducing damage taken by 25%

New Talent: Superstition (Passive)

You take 50% less damage from Abilities, but 30% more damage from Basic Attacks

Level 16

Specialized Toxin (Trait)

Removed

Leaping Spiders (Q)

Removed

Infested Toads (E)

Removed

Hardened Focus (Passive)

Removed

New Talent: Spider Colony (Q)

Corpse Spiders recharges twice as fast while you are above 850 (+4% per level) Health.

New Talent: Ring of Poison (W)

Increases the duration of Wall of Zombies by 1 second, and now deals 375 damage over 4 seconds. Damage starts small and increases over the duration.

New Talent: Soul Harvest (Active)

Activate to gain 3% Ability Power and maximum Health for every nearby enemy, up to 15%. Health and Ability Power bonuses last 15 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

Level 20

Humongoid (R)

No longer makes the Gargantuan last indefinitely or increases its Basic Attack damage to non-Heroic enemies

New Functionality:

Reduces the cooldown of Gargantuan by 50 seconds, and the Mana cost by 50%

Bolt of the Storm (Active)

Removed

New Talent: Vile Infection (Trait)

Quest: After reaching 150 stacks of Voodoo Ritual, increase Voodoo Ritual’s damage by 200% and cause it to also apply to Heroes.

Developer Comments: Nazeebo is one of the oldest Heroes in the game, and his Talent tree was in dire need of an upgrade. The goal of the revamp was to increase the reward of mastering the Hero’s Abilities, maintain his identity as a zone control and damage over time character, embrace the fun mini-game that was Death Ritual, and provide interesting synergies between Abilities and Talents. We wanted to be sure to reinforce the designed weaknesses of the Hero that are lack of burst and lack of mobility, while still making him viable in the current metagame of Heroes of the Storm. Overall, a lot of his old Talents had to be revamped or replaced, but we find that he still feels a lot like the old Nazeebo, just more interesting!

Level (Tier)

Nazeebo Talents

1 (1)

(!) Widowmakers (Q)

(!) Pandemic (E)

Thing of the Deep (Passive)

—

4 (2)

Hexed Crawlers (Q)

Big Voodoo (Trait)

Blood Ritual (Trait)

—

7 (3)

Spirit of Arachyr (Q)

Dead Rush (W)

Toads of Hugeness (E)

—

10 (4)

Gargantuan (R)

Ravenous Spirit (R)

—

—

13 (5)

Guardian Toads (E)

Superstition (Passive)

Ice Block (Active)

—

16 (6)

Spider Colony (Q)

Ring of Poison (W)

Soul Harvest (Active)

—

20 (7)

Humongoid (R)

Annihilating Spirit (R)

Fury of the Storm (Passive)

(!) Vile Infection (Trait))

(!) indicates a Questing Talent.

Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.

Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

Support

Kharazim

Talents

Level 13

Sixth Sense (Passive)

Block amount increased from 50 to 75% after being stunned or rooted.

Li Li

Talents

Level 16

Shake It Off (Passive)

No longer has a cooldown

Resistant amount increased from 25 to 50%

Resistant duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Malfurion

Abilities

Regrowth (Q)

Cooldown reduced from 7 to 5 seconds

Mana cost reduced from 60 to 35

Duration increased from 10 to 15 seconds

Periodic heal reduced from 75 to 60

Entangling Roots (E)

Increased range by roughly 12%

Delay before initial root reduced from .5 seconds to .25 seconds

Innervate (Trait)

Added Functionality:

Now causes the target’s Basic Abilities to cooldown 50% faster for the duration of Innervate

Talents

Level 1

Harmony (Q)

Removed

Level 4

Rampant Growth (Q)

Healing bonus reduced from 50 to 40%

Level 7

Enduring Growth (Q)

Removed

Developer Comments: While we realize that Malfurion’s talent tree could use some work, and we want to do a deeper dive in the future, we wanted to give him a better niche among our other Support heroes in the meantime. His throughput healing should be higher, and a bigger part of his gameplay should now be rolling his heal-over-time effects among multiple allies to keep them alive. He now also has the unique ability to give allies cooldown reduction in addition to Mana, which should give him a new reason to be considered being added to a team. We’ve also buffed the initial root search for his Entangling Roots, which will enable him to more reliably root enemy Heroes instead of relying on his teammates to secure crowd control.

Flying Kick now deals 100% more damage if Chen has Fortifying Brew shields.

Amplified Healing (Passive)

Removed

Deep Breath (E)

Removed

Level 7

Full Keg (W)

Removed

Combat Stance (Trait)

Removed

Ring of Fire (E)

Moved to Level 4

Periodic damage increased from 30 to 50

New Talent: Refreshing Elixir (Passive)

All regeneration and healing effects are increased by 20%. This bonus is increased to 60% while channeling Fortifying Brew.

Level 13

Brew Strike (Q)

Removed

Enough to Share (Trait)

Moved to Level 16

Relentless (Passive)

Removed

New Talent: Withering Flames (E)

Setting an enemy Hero on fire reduces their Ability Power by 25% for 3 seconds.

Level 16

Bottomless Mug (Trait)

Removed

Bolder Flavor (Trait)

Moved to Level 7

New Functionality:

Grants 50% of your full Shield instantly when you use Fortifying Brew, and causes Shields to persist for 1 second after drinking.

Pressure Point (Q)

Moved to Level 13

New Functionality:

Flying Kick slows enemy Movement Speed by 40% for 1 second. This effect is doubled if the target is affected by Keg Smash.

Combination Attack (Q)

Removed

New Talent: Flying Leap (Q)

Increases the range of Flying Kick by 20%

New Talent: Another Round (W)

After hitting an enemy Hero with Keg Smash, the cooldown of the next Basic Ability you cast will be reduced by 3 seconds.

Level 20

Untapped Potential (R)

New Functionality:

Increases Movement Speed of Wandering Keg by 25%

Chen gains 50% damage reduction while in Wandering Keg

Elemental Conduit (R)

New Functionality:

Your Sprits now have 100% of Chen’s Maximum Health.

Storm (Q): Also grants Unstoppable to your Spirits for the duration of the Movement Speed boost

Earth (W): Also reduces the cooldown of Leap by 3 seconds

Fire (E): No longer an Active ability. Spirits now attack 100% faster while the Fire Spirit is alive

Hardened Shield (Active)

Removed

Bolt of the Storm (Active)

Removed

New Talent: Purifying Brew (Trait)

Passively reduce the duration of the next Stun or Silence effect by 75% and reset the cooldown of Fortifying Brew. This can only happen once every 10 seconds.

New Talent: Stormstout Secret Recipe (Passive)

Heal for 1.5% of your Maximum Health every time your Basic Abilities hit an enemy Hero.

Developer Comments: We know how much passion our players have for Chen and spent months upgrading his Talent Tree to our newest philosophies. To give you an idea of what we were looking to improve, here were a couple of our goals with this update: Chen should be able to be a solo-tank for your team and not be afraid to constantly soak enemy skill-shots. Chen should be a constant threat to the enemy’s backline damage dealers. Chen should deal low amounts of burst damage while continually applying sustained damage at pointed targets. Chen should be extremely resilient in the absence of enemy stuns. As always, we are listening to your feedback and appreciate everyone taking the time to send it to us. Enjoy the new Talent Tree, and as Chen has said many times before- “It is important to master the Brew and not let it master you!”

Level (Tier)

Chen Talents

1 (1)

(!) Accumulating Flame (Q)

Grounding Brew (Trait)

(!) Freshest Ingredients (Trait)

Elusive Brawler (Active)

4 (2)

Deadly Strike (Q)

(!) Keg Toss (W)

Ring of Fire (E)

—

7 (3)

Brewmaster’s Balance (Trait)

Bolder Flavor (Trait)

Refreshing Elixir (Passive)

—

10 (4)

Wandering Keg (R)

Storm, Earth, Fire (R)

—

—

13 (5)

Pressure Point (Q)

A Touch of Honey (W)

Withering Flames (E)

—

16 (6)

Flying Leap (Q)

Another Round (W)

Enough to Share (Trait)

—

20 (7)

Untapped Potential (R)

Elemental Conduit (R)

Purifying Brew (Trait)

Stormstout Secret Recipe (Passive)

(!) indicates a Questing Talent.

Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.

Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

E.T.C.

Abilities

Powerslide (Q)

Range increased by 25%

Rockstar (Trait)

Radius increased by 10%

Talents

Level 1

Rolling Like a Stone (Q)

Removed

Block (Passive)

Removed

Prog Rock (E)

New Functionality:

Quest: Gathering a Regeneration Globe permanently increases the healing per second of Guitar Solo by 5, up to a maximum of 100.

Reward: After reaching 100 increased healing, Guitar Solo also heals nearby allied Heroes for 53 Health every second while active.

Pwn Shop Guitar (E)

Moved to Level 16

Renamed to Aggressive Shredding

New Functionality:

Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Guitar Solo by 1 second.

New Talent: Block Party (Trait)

Rockstar also grants Allies a stack of Block, reducing the damage from the next Basic Attack by 50% for 8 seconds. Stacks up to 2 times.

Level 4

Double-Necked Guitar (Q)

Removed

Mic Check (W)

Moved to Level 13

Number of targets hit required to reduce Face Melt’s cooldown decreased from 3 to 2

Pinball Wizard (W)

Moved to Level 7

Bonus damage increased from 50 to 150%

New Talent: Crowd Surfer (Q)

Powerslide can now travel over walls and unpathable areas.

Level 7

Just Keep Rockin’ (E)

Removed

Guitar Hero (E)

Moved to Level 1

New Functionality:

While Guitar Solo is active, you heal for 30% of the damage dealt by Basic Attacks. Also increases the Attack Speed bonus from Rockstar from 20% to 25%.

Loud Speakers (W)

Moved to Level 4

Follow Through (Passive)

Renamed to Hammer-on

New Functionality:

After using an Ability, your next 2 Basic Attacks deal 30% more damage.

Level 13

Groupies (E)

Removed

Spell Shield (Passive)

Removed

Show Stopper (Q)

Moved to Level 16

Face Smelt (W)

Slow amount reduced from 80 to 60%

Level 16

Speed Metal (Trait)

Moved to Level 4

Movement Speed bonus reduced from 20 to 10%

Echo Pedal (Passive)

Moved to Level 7

Damage decreased from 59 to 32.

Added Functionality:

Now deals double damage vs. Minions and Mercenaries.

Encore (W)

Moved to Level 13

Developer Comments: We like E.T.C.’s core gameplay, but wanted to improve his talent diversity. Many E.T.C. players end up picking the same talents in most games, especially at Levels 1 and 4, due to the importance of buffing Powerslide. We’ve streamlined that power, and have given him more options to play up the bard aspect of his kit, which should make him more of a team player.

Level (Tier)

E.T.C. Talents

1 (1)

Guitar Hero (E)

(!) Prog Rock (E)

Block Party (Trait)

—

—

4 (2)

CrowdSurfer (Q)

Loud Speakers (W)

Speed Metal (Trait)

—

—

7 (3)

Pinball Wizard (W)

Echo Pedal (Passive)

Hammer-on (Passive)

—

—

10 (4)

Mosh Pit (R)

Stage Dive (R)

—

—

—

13 (5)

Mic Check (W)

Encore (W)

Face Smelt (W)

—

—

16 (6)

Show Stopper (Q)

Aggressive Shredding (E)

Imposing Presence (Active)

—

—

20 (7)

Tour Bus (R)

Crowd Pleaser (R)

Death Metal (Passive)

Storm Shield (Active)

Bolt of the Storm (Active)

(!) indicates a Questing Talent.

Italic text indicates a NEW Talent.

Bold text indicates a MOVED Talent.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue that prevented players from placing Healing Totems near destructible objects and unpathable terrain.